The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1887-03-25
TEMPERANCE READING.
"HOME-MADE" WINES.
The Biber Not Certain Now-a-days of
Drinking Even the Product of Moldy
Raisins.


Raisins.
Much has been said relative to man.
ufactured wines, and the fear of drink
ing then is only second to that of eat
ing oleomargarine or glucose. The
latter are not positively injurious to
the health, while the former are open
to all the objections usually made to
spirituous drinks, and are in addition
really harmful to the system. As many
as 100000 gallons of wine are often
received in New York in one month,
and it is an open question what per-
centage Of it is the pure and unadul-
terated juice of the grape. In order to
see what portion is either American
production or else of foreign or domes-
tic manufacture, one must arrive at
some idea OF the amount of the foreign
vintages.
The leading foreign red and white
wines are the Chateau Lafitte, Chateau
Y'Quem, Chateau Margaux, Chateau
Haut-Brion, Moselle and Chiante.
With the exception of the latter wine,
the following shows the amount pro-
| duced OF each in 1884: Chateau Lafitte,
| first and second-class. 685 hogsheads;
Chateau Y'Quem, $4,000 dozen; Cha
teau Margaux, first and second-class,
670hogsheads, and Chateau Haut- Brion,
450 hogsheads. Chiante, which is pop
ularly supposed to be an Italian wine,
first commended itself to the American
public by reason of the fancy bottles,
wicker covered, in which it is sold.
When the empty bottles are not sold
outright for decoration they are taken
to some convenient cellar and refilled.
1t will be seen that were the entire
vintages of Bordeaux and Burgundy
brought to New York they would be
but drop in the vinous ocean. How,
then, is the supply procured? In
March, 1886, 1896, 800 gallons of Cali
fornia wines were brought to New
York City alone. This was an unus-
ually heavy CONSIGNMENT, and it would
have to be kept up steadily were moth
ing but pure wine drunk. BY what
means, then, is the deficit between the
combined wine product of Europe and
America and the amount actually con-
sumed supplied?
There are several old Frenchmen in
New York who have made almost Ma
tional regulations as wine dealers and
experts. They have about retired from
business, but, with the proverbial thrift
of their nation, they still find time to
tend to their shops few hours daily.
Some of them have large restaurants
in connection with their wholesale and
retail wine trade, and favored custom
ers are often given an opportunity to
smack their lips over some rare old
wine, whose label is too dust-begrimed
to be legible, and as they hold the wine
to the light they become enthusiastic
over its color, flavor and bouquet, and
probably order several dozen bottles of
it sent to their homes. Now this wine
may be old, and it may be new. Itmay
have been imported from France, or
perchance it was pressed out on the
sunny Italian hills; but it is more than
probable that the old Frenchman, I'M
less he knows that his customer has a
trained and delicate palate, has given
him some wine that is but the partial
product of the vine, and was concOcted
under the skilled eye of monsieur in the
sub-basement of the very establishment
where it is drunk. Why should one
find fault? 1t is surely more compli-
mentary in a host to give one the re-
suit of his own labor than to furnish
one with that of another If it is real
wine there is exactly one chance in ten
thousand that it is what the label rep
resents it to be. 1t may be the out
come of a judicious mixture of several
Indifferent varieties blended into a har-
monious whole, or it may be an Amer
lean wine sailing under false colors.
Human ingenuity has never yet been
able to make wine without some small
percentage of alcohol, so this element
remains as base for the worst of pro-
auctions. AS rule, the manufactured
wines arc offered either as California
wines or as Gi'1 Ordindtre, or sour claret.
They arc the distillation of raisins col
ored with logwood. The raisins are
placed in vat filled with water at a
temperature of sixty degrees, there be-
ing fifty-five gallons of water to every
hundred weight of raisins. Some
sugar is often thrown in to hasten fer
mentation, which usually lasts eight or
ten days, at the end of which time the
liquid is drawn off and wine is made
1t is of course pale, and it is doctOred
with some high-colored Spanish wine,
which is cheap, and then solution of
logwood is added These wines do
not, at the most, contain more than
ten per cent. of alcohol, and, having
but little tannin, they will not keep
long. When wine is thus produced it
will not cost much. Raisins are not
expensive, and moldy article answers
as well as one that is fresh. They may
be bought for IS hundred weight, and
sometimes at Sc and 81.
When full allowance has been made
for the cost of manufacture there re-
mains an ample profit when they are
sold at twenty cents gallon. A noted
Frence chemist has declared that the
raisin wine, if not drugged, is vastly
more healthful than many of the MKT
ures, most of them deleterious, sold
for genuine wine. This may give wine
drinkers Il spark of encouragement for
there is no way of accounting for the
consumption of the enormous raisin
products of Italy, Turkey, Spain and
Greece, unless one admits that they
arc used to take the place of grapes.
Europe formerly used 5000 tons of
raisins, and now it is estimated that
the product is $4,000 tons. This is not
allowing for the large output of the
California raisin vineyard. But the
counterfeiting of wines, unhappilN
does not stop with the raisin product.
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